VeriSign: Encyclopedia II - VeriSign - History

VeriSign - History

VeriSign was founded in 1995 as a spin-off of the RSA Security certification services business. The new company received licenses to key cryptographic patents held by RSA and a time limited non-compete agreement. The new company served as a certificate authority (CA) — a role it still fulfills — and its initial mission was "providing trust for the Internet and Electronic Commerce through our Digital Authentication services and products." VeriSign now has more than 3,000,000 certificates in operation for everything from military to financial services and retail applications, making it the largest CA behind the encryption and authentication on the Internet, which most people recognize as the little padlock in their Web browser when shopping online.

The company held an Initial Public Offering on 30 January 1998 for US$14 a share. The pre-IPO investors included RSA Data Security Inc., Bessemer Ventures, Kleiner-Perkins, VISA International, Ameritech, Mitsubishi, Security Dynamics, and Fischer International. Along the way, VeriSign broadened its portfolio of "infrastructure services" by acquiring a number of additional businesses, including Network Solutions in 2000 (from which it derived the domain name business, and later spun off the customer-facing 'registrar' component), Illuminet in 2001 (which marked the company's first foray into telecommunications), Guardent in 2003 (which improved its managed security offering), and Jamba! in 2004 (which is called Jamster! in English-speaking countries and consists of downloadable digital content for mobile phones).

As of 2005, VeriSign takes in more than $1 billion in annual revenue ($1.17 billion for FY 2004) with more than 3000 employees worldwide. The CEO is Stratton Sclavos. The business is divided into two large divisions: Internet Services and Communications Services.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki